The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Diamond Cross Mystery, by Chester K. Steele

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Title: The Diamond Cross Mystery Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story

Author: Chester K. Steele

Release Date: June 25, 2005 [eBook #16127]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIAMOND CROSS MYSTERY***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE DIAMOND CROSS

Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story

by

CHESTER K. STEELE

Author of "The Mansion of Mystery," etc.

International Fiction Library
Cleveland New York
Press Of
The Commercial Bookbinding Co.
Cleveland

1918

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

     I. The Ticking Watch
    II. King's Dagger
   III. The Fisherman
    IV. Spotty
     V. Amy's Appeal
    VI. Grafton's Search
   VII. The Colonel is Surprised
  VIII. The Diamond Cross
    IX. Indicted
     X. The Death Watch
    XI. No Alimony
   XII. The Odd Coin
  XIII. Singa Phut
   XIV. The Hidden Wires
    XV. A Dog
   XVI. The Colonel Wonders
  XVII. "A Jolly Good Fellow"
 XVIII. Amy's Test
   XIX. Word From Spotty
    XX. In The Shadows
   XXI. Swirling Waters
  XXII. His Last Case

CHAPTER I

THE TICKING WATCH

There was only one sound which broke the intense stillness of the jewelry shop on that fateful April morning. That sound was the ticking of the watch in the hand of the dead woman.

Outside, the rain was falling. Not a heavy downpour which splashed cheerfully on umbrellas and formed swollen streams in the gutters, whence they rushed toward the sewer basins, carrying with them an accumulation of sticks, leaves and dirt. Not a windy, gusty rain, that made a man glad to get indoors near a genial fire, with his pipe and a book.

It was a drizzle; a steady, persistent drizzle, which a half-hearted wind blew this way and that, as though neither element cared much for the task in hand—that of thoroughly soaking the particular part of the universe in the neighborhood of Colchester and taking its own time in which to do it.

Early in the unequal contest the sun had given up its effort to pierce through the leaden clouds, and had taken its beams to other places—to busy cities, to smiling country villages and farms. Above, around, below, on all sides, soaking through and through, drizzling it, soaking it, sprinkling it, half-hiding it in fog and mist, the rain enveloped Colchester—a sodden, damp garment.

Early paper boys slunk along the slippery streets, trying to protect their limp wares from becoming mere blotters. The gongs of the few trolley cars that were sent out to take the early toilers to their tasks rang as though covered with a blanket of fog. The thud of the feet of the milkmen's horses was muffled, and the rattle of bottles seemed to come from afar off, as though over some misty lake.

James Darcy, shivering as he arose, silently protesting, from his warm bed, pulled on his garments audibly grumbling, the grumble becoming a voiced protest as he shuffled in his slippers along the corridor above the jewelry shop and went down the private stairs into the main sales-room.

The electric light in front of the massive safe seemed to lear at him with a bleared eye like that of a toper, who, having spent the night in convivial company, found himself, most unaccountably, on his own doorstep in the gray dawn.

"Raining!" murmured James Darcy, as he reached over to switch on the light above the little table where he set precious stones into gold and platinum of rare and beautiful designs. "Raining and cold! I wish the steam was on."

The fog from outside seemed to have penetrated into the jewelry shop. It swirled about the gleaming showcases, reflected from the cut glass, danced away from the silver cups, broke into points of light from the times of forks, became broad splotches on the blades of knives, and, perchance, made its way through the cracks into the safe, where it bathed the diamonds, the rubies, the sapphires, the aqua marines, the pearls, the jades, and the bloodstones in a white mist. The bloodstones—

Strange that James Darcy should have thought of them as he looked at the rain outside, heard its drip, drip, drip on the windows, and saw the fog and swirls of mist inside and without the store. Strange and—

First, as he gazed at the prostrate body—the horrid red blotch like a gay ribbon in the white hair—he thought the small, insistent sound which seemed to fill the room was the beating of her heart. Then, as he listened, his ears attuned with fear, he knew it was the ticking of the watch in the hand of the dead woman.

James Darcy rubbed his eyes, as though to clear them from the fog. He rubbed them again—he passed his hand before his face as if cobwebs had drifted there—he touched his ears, which seemed not a part of himself.

"Tick-tick! Tick-tick! Tick-tick!"

The sound seemed to grow louder. It was not her heart!

"Hello! Come here, somebody! Amelia! what's the matter? Sallie! Sallie Page! Wake up! Hello, somebody! She's dead! Killed! There's been a murder! I must get the police!"

James Darcy started to cross the room to reach and fling open the front door leading to the street, that he might call the alarm to others than the deaf cook, who had not yet come downstairs. Mrs. Darcy's maid had gone away the previous evening, and was not expected in until noon. It was too early for any of the jewelry clerks to report. Yet Darcy felt he must have some one with him.

To cross the store to reach the door meant stepping over the body—the grotesquely twisted body, with the white, upturned face and the little spot of red, near where the silver comb had fallen from the silvered hair. And so Darcy changed his mind—he ran to the side door, fumbled with the lock, flung back the portal, and then rushed out in the rain and drizzle, the fog streaming after mm as he parted the mist like long, white streamers of ribbon, such as they suspend at the door for the very young or the aged.

"Hello! Hello!" shouted Darcy into the silent rain and mist of the early morning street, now deserted save for himself.

The glistening asphalt, the gleaming trolley rails, the dark and damp buildings seemed to echo back his words.

"Hello! Hello!"

"Police!" voiced James Darcy. "There's been a murder!"

"A murder!" echoed the mist.

There was silence after this, and Darcy looked up and down the street. Not a person—not a vehicle—was in sight. No one looked from the stores or houses on either side or across from the